1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of networking computer systems and more particularly to the field of systems for providing control over distribution, redistribution, access security, filtering, organizing and display of information across disparate networks.
2. Background
In most industries and professions today there is a rapidly increasing need for intercompany as well as intracompany communications. Most companies, firms, and institutions want to allow their employees to communicate internally, with other employees, and externally with the firm""s customers, vendors, information sources, and others throughout a work day. Depending on the nature of the information and the relationship between the parties, these communications may need to take the form of one-to-one communiques in some cases, one-to-many broadcasts in others, many to many communications, and even many-to-one communications. Some of these categories might also provide better information for all concerned if the flow of data is interactive and collaborative, allowing recipients to comment, share, and build upon what has already been received.
Most large private networks are built of complex sets of:
Local Area Networks (LAN) - a set of computers located within a fairly small physical area, usually less than 2 miles, and linked to each other by high speed cables or other connections; and
Wide Area Networks (WAN) - groups of Local Area Networks that are linked to each other over high speed long distance communications lines or satellites that convey data quickly over long distances, forming the xe2x80x9cbackbonexe2x80x9d of the internal network.
These private internal networks use complex hardware and software to transmit, route, and receive messages internally.
Sharing and distributing information inside a corporate network has been made somewhat easier by using client/server technology, web browsers, and hypertext technology used in the Internet, on an internal basis, as the first steps towards creating xe2x80x9cintranets.xe2x80x9d In typical client/server technology, one computer acts as the xe2x80x9cback endxe2x80x9d or server to perform complex tasks for the users, while other, smaller computers or terminals are the xe2x80x9cfront-endxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cclientsxe2x80x9d that communicate with the user. In a client/server approach the client requests data from the server. A web server is a program that acts as a server function for hypertext information. In large private networks, a server computer might have web server software operating on it to handle hypertext communications within the company""s internal network. At the web server site, one or more people would create documents in hypertext format and make them available at the server. In many companies, employees would have personal computers at their desks connected to the internal network. In an xe2x80x9cintranetxe2x80x9d these employees would use a web browser on their personal computers to see what hypertext documents are available at the web server. While this has been an advance for internal communications over a private network, it requires personnel familiar with HyperText Markup Language (HTML) the language that is used to create hypertext links in documents to create and maintain the xe2x80x9cinternalxe2x80x9d web pages. If a more interactive approach is desired, an Information Technology (IT) specialist in some form of scripting, such as CGI, PERL, is needed who can create forms documents and procedures to allow users to ask for information from the server.
It is now increasingly common for intranets to connect to the Internet forming what is sometimes called an xe2x80x9cextranet.xe2x80x9d The Internet, however, is essentially a passive transmission system. There is no automatic notification sent to clients or customers that a new report is available on a given Internet Web page that is external to the client""s intranet. Customers or clients normally would have to search the Internet periodically to see if a Web page has changed, and if the change is something he or she is interested in seeing. Some Web page sites that provide fee services use e-mail to notify prospective users that the new data is available. As mentioned, e-mail is slow, so if the data is also time-sensitive, the notification may not reach the customer until later in the day, when it may be of much less value.
It is an object of the present invention to provide receipts for communications sent.
This is achieved by a method for creating distributed objects representing receipt requests which are sent with a primary distributed object, indicating a receipt is requested when the primary distributed object has been received at a client side communications server or accessed by a member of a workgroup, or both.